Astronaut Packs Crafts for Creative Space Station Trip

When NASA's Karen Nyberg, the European Space Agency's Luca Parmitano and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin officially launch on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station on May 28, the American astronaut will bring a few key creative items with her.

NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg, Expedition 36/37 flight engineer, poses with the Russian Sokol spacesuit she will wear during her trip to the International Space Station. Liftoff set for May 28 (EDT), 2013.

Although the six-month-stint will be Nyberg's longest in space, it is not her first time visiting the International Space Station.

"I'm looking forward to the most this time actually living there," Nyberg told SPACE.com. "I visited space station in 2008 on the space shuttle Discovery, and it was a very, very quick trip, only 14 days and honestly, I don't really remember a lot of it because it just flew on by so fast."

Nyberg, 43, is planning on sharing her experiences on board the station with the world using social media, although she has only be using Twitter (where she posts from the account @AstroKarenN) for a little over a month. She is also on Pintrest with the handle: knyberg.

Nyberg follows in a line of female astronauts who have spent time on board the International Space Station.

NASA's Karen Nyberg, the European Space Agency's Luca Parmitano and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin are scheduled to launch to the International Space Station on May 28, 2013. Image released May 17, 2013.

Credit: NASA/Victor Zelentsov

"The females that have lived on space station before me are incredible people and have given me a lot of advice on living there and also dealing with having a child at home while living there," Nyberg said. "So it's just fantastic to follow in their footsteps."

The Minnesota native admits that she will miss a few things about life back on Earth aside from her family.

"I also will definitely miss coffee in the morning out of a cup," Nyberg said. "It's just not quite the same when you drink your coffee from a bag."

Nyberg, Parmitano and Yurchikhin will complete the space station's Expedition 36 crew when they join NASA's Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Misurkin and Pavel Vinogradov on the orbiting laboratory at the end of the month.

The $100 billion International Space Station was constructed by 5 space agencies representing 15 different countries.

Miriam Kramer joined Space.com as a staff writer in December 2012. Since then, she has floated in weightlessness on a zero-gravity flight, felt the pull of 4-Gs in a trainer aircraft and watched rockets soar into space from Florida and Virginia. She also serves as Space.com's lead space entertainment reporter, and enjoys all aspects of space news, astronomy and commercial spaceflight.

Miriam has also presented space stories during live interviews with Fox News and other TV and radio outlets. She originally hails from Knoxville, Tennessee where she and her family would take trips to dark spots on the outskirts of town to watch meteor showers every year. She loves to travel and one day hopes to see the northern lights in person. You can follow Miriam on Twitter and Google+.